Walls Cave In
by kendricked
Summary: Bechloe high school AU. Popular senior Chloe Beale lends a helping hand to Beca Mitchell one day after school, and the two soon discover they have more in common than originally realized.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Special thanks to Mary for using her magical beta powers to make this a coherent thing. Bless her.**

Beca Mitchell let out an exasperated sigh as she grabbed a wrench from the pathetic array of tools she'd collected at various yard sales over the past year. She scooted her way underneath her mom's car yet again despite the growing pain in her back, grumbling as she went. She'd been at it for two or three hours, minutes starting to blend together and the words she'd read on the car manual swimming around in her brain. She adjusted her grip on the flashlight in her right hand as she loosened a bolt with her left. There was a sudden crunch and a piece of the part she was working on cracked, sending rust flakes falling into her hair.

"Fuck," she whispered, closing her eyes in frustration. That was the end of that, then. Hopefully she could scavenge enough of her money to buy a new part tomorrow. She glanced at the time on her phone. Three thirty four in the morning. "Shit."

She made her way stiffly out from under the car and brushed rust off her jeans. Her mom's car broke down earlier that day, and Beca had been determined to fix it. She knew money was tight even though it was just the two of them, so she had taken it upon herself to learn the inner workings of both of their cars so they could avoid an expensive trip to a mechanic to fix them up. She never informed her mom of this, knowing she'd only protest and be overly concerned, so she had taken to transforming into a mechanic at midnight on occasion, like a strange kind of reverse Cinderella.

She walked quietly into the house and scribbled a note to her mom, telling her to take her car to work while she took the bus, then made her way into her room, not bothering to turn on a light. She nearly tripped in the dark over some old DJ equipment she'd left out, but once she reached her bed, she collapsed in a sore heap and fell asleep immediately.

* * *

Beca stretched her arms out, willing her back to crack, but it didn't give her the satisfaction. She rubbed her eyes and turned her head to look at the time.

8:05

"Dammit," Beca swore as she got up as quickly as she could, ridding herself of her dirty clothes from the night before. She frantically grabbed at piles of clothes splayed out on her floor, finding clean ones and throwing them on quickly. She grabbed her book bag and a Pop Tart, ready to dash out the door, when the heavens broke loose with a loud rumble of thunder. She searched fruitlessly for an umbrella, bracing herself as she placed her hand on the doorknob. "Thanks for the warning, Noah." She pulled up the hood of her old jacket and was out the door.

* * *

The rest of the day crawled by. Beca was soaked for at least half of the day, and her back was sore from working on her mom's car. She had difficulty moving about in gym class, even more reluctant to move than usual, and her teacher had given her crap for it, to which she had shouted, "do you even lift?" at him, earning her a detention later in the week. As exhausting as the day was, and after approximately an eternity, it was two minutes until freedom began at last.

The bell rang and Beca sighed in utter relief, her aching back and tolerance of judging eyes of her junior class were wearing thin. She slung her tattered backpack over her shoulder and practically flew out of class, keeping her head down as she went. She adjusted her grip on her bag and began to fight through the sea of students high on the joy of reaching the end of the day. It was like fighting through clusters of bees, and someone knocked into her just as she reached her locker, and she swore she heard a little rip from her book bag. Her hand flew to the ragged material, but didn't feel any signs of an impending book avalanche, so she turned her attention to her locker.

Just as the lock clicked open and she stepped back to view its contents, someone from the mass student exodus banged into her and there was a louder rip this time as her backpack threw up its contents onto the ground.

"Dude!" Beca yelled at the retreating form, receiving no response. The hallway was practically cleared out as she stiffly went down on her knees to retrieve her notebooks and textbooks. As she reached for her history notebook and let out a colorful swear, a small laugh sounded. Beca looked up, realizing another person had joined her place on the linoleum floor.

"Here, you dropped these," a redhead said with a bright smile as she held out the rest of Beca's things. Beca recognized her; she was always with the popular gang of seniors who looked like they belonged in a Hollister or American Eagle advertisement rather than fifth period.

"Oh," Beca replied, looking in disbelief at the girl's genuine smile. There was a joke here somewhere, a catch. She was being punk'd by the popular crew with an intolerance for heavy eye lined alt girls, she was sure of it. "Um…thanks."

She took the notebooks from the girl's hand and shoved them into her backpack, unable to look away as the senior pushed back long locks of red hair.

"It looks like your backpack has seen better days, huh?" The girl asked as she gave a little smile towards Beca's duct taped bag. The smile still was absolutely genuine, but Beca remained apprehensive.

"It's only outlived a few wars on the front line and a couple mosh pits here and there, yeah," she replied. She reached in her locker and pulled out a roll of duct tape that she kept on hand for emergencies such as these. "It's not a big deal."

"I know duct tape makes the world go 'round and everything but I could sew that up for you y'know," the girl gestured to the rip. Beca gaped at her, this smartly dressed senior randomly offering her help? She took a breath to respond-

"Oh yeah, I could totally throw a couple stitches in here no problem!" the girl smiled as she examined the bag.

"It's really not-"

"What's the matter? You can trust me," the girl grinned and leaned against the lockers. "I made my own prom dress."

"It's just," Beca hesitated, biting her lip. Suddenly words poured from her mouth before she could think. "It's just everyone always tells me to get another bag…they don't get it, no one's ever just…wanted to fix it without any questions asked before."

Beca blushed, eyes finding the floor. What was wrong with her? She didn't even know this girl.

"Hey." There was something in the tone of the senior's voice that made Beca look up into her light blue eyes. "I get the feeling of wanting to keep stuff." She held out her left hand and wiggled her fingers to show a neon plastic ring on her pinky finger. "This was from my best friend Aubrey when we were little kids. I don't know why, but I always wanna keep it, even though it did come out of a cereal box. It broke once, and I superglued it back together. So, I get it."

Beca blinked, not sure what was exactly happening. She was kneeling with a pretty popular girl in the middle of a hallway having a conversation about sentimental value. When she was little she had always wanted to guest star on the Twilight Zone, but now this whole thing felt like a cruel joke.

"That's," Beca paused to search the girl's face, looking for a sign that this was all some kind of hoax, but came up empty. "That's nice of you."

"Or just really corny of me," the girl replied, her bubbly laughter filling the hall. It was so strangely contagious that even Beca found herself briefly chuckling.

"C'mon," the ginger grabbed Beca's arm and pulled her to her feet. "Let's get that backpack fixed."

Beca raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"Duh, silly," the girl smiled. "Unless you want a new enemy when that rock of a chem book escapes and drops on someone's foot."

"I have enough already," Beca shifted the bag in her hands.

"Same," the senior nodded. Beca looked at her in disbelief. The girl laughs again.

"At least nine enemies a day, and they're my classes."

"I totally get that," Beca agreed, smiling a bit as she shut her locker.

"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, hitting herself in the forehead. "I never introduced myself!" She held out a hand. "I'm Chloe-"

"Chloe Beale," Beca finished, having a sudden epiphany. "Yeah, everyone knows you. Even those of us who don't sit at the cool table."

"But do they really _know_ me though?" Chloe looked suddenly sincere for a moment, "And you look pretty cool to me."

Beca considered her worn down, duct taped boots and wrinkled old flannel. "If by cool you mean rebellious and angst ridden, then yeah I agree."

"Aren't we all? So, Ms. Dark-and-Dangerous, what's your name?" Chloe smiled.

Beca rolled her eyes at the title. "Beca Mitchell."

Chloe stuck out her hand further, reminding Beca it was there, and she took it; Chloe's soft hand warm against Beca's rough slender one, their rings touching briefly as they moved apart.

"So Beca Mitchell," Chloe began, "Let's fix that bag of yours." The two began making their way towards the front doors.

"Dude, really? Don't you, um, have like…more important things to do?" Beca shifted the bag's weight in her arms.

"This is important!" Chloe looked shocked. "This is an intense SR predicament for your friend there."

"SR?"

"Sewing Room! Y'know instead of the ER, the SR?" Chloe explained, her hands moving about with excited energy.

Beca gave Chloe one of her best eye rolls. "That is so dumb."

"The SR is not a laughing matter, Beca."

"I'm not laughing."

"Good."

Beca looked down, grinning in spite of herself. The two walked in silence for a bit, Beca's heavy boots clunking as they reached the exit.

"So what kind of cereal was it?" Beca asked before she could stop herself.

"What?"

"The ring," Beca mumbled, losing confidence fast. "You mentioned your friend giving it to you."

"Oh!" Chloe beamed. "It was a box of Lucky Charms!"

"Ugh," Beca wrinkled her nose. "Those so called marshmallows are a disgrace to all marshmallow kind."

"I know right?" Chloe laughed, "They're like, freeze dried or something."

"I think even our noble astronauts would say 'hell no' to them."

"Totes," Chloe agreed as they opened the doors to the parking lot. "So, where are you parked, Bec?"

"I'm," Beca pushed a piece of hair to hide a bit of her face as she looked down at her boots, "I um, walked today."

"Beca," Chloe said, her expression soft. "It rained this morning."

"It uh," Beca bit her lip, "it wasn't too bad."

Chloe stepped toward her, concern on her face. "Beca?"

Beca looked anywhere but Chloe's face, kicking at a tuft of grass growing out of a crack in the asphalt. "My mom's car broke down and I couldn't fix it in time so I told her I was taking the bus anyway so she could use my car and then I missed the bus so…"

"You could fix it?" Chloe said, eyebrows raised. "Wow! But why didn't you call anyone for a ride?"

"I mean I tried to, I don't know I've managed to do it before," Beca shrugged. "And I-" she let out the next part in a single breath, "I really didn't have anyone to call. I mean Amy isn't old enough and-"

"Gimme your phone."

"What?" Beca asked, taken aback.

Chloe gave her a small smile and held out her hand, "Beca, gimme your phone."

"I-" Beca started to protest but she found herself placing her phone in Chloe's hand.

Chloe hit a couple keys quickly, smiling a bit as she did so, then handed Beca's phone back, screen up so she could see what she had done.

"Now you do."

Beca looked from Chloe to her phone, where under contacts there was now a "Chloe :)" and then back to the redhead, her jaw slightly slack.

"Um," Beca began, completely thrown by this entire encounter with Chloe Beale. "Wow, I, uh thanks."

"No problem! No more walkin' in the rain for you!" Chloe bumped her shoulder against Beca's. "Unless you feel like singin' in the rain then that's a different thing."

"You're crazy," Beca said, half kidding and half serious.

"Maybe," Chloe grinned, "Come on, my car's over here."

She led her to a small navy blue car and opened the passenger door for Beca.

"Are you sure?" Beca looked at the state of her worn boots. "It's really ok I can just-"

"Don't be silly!" Chloe said, waving away Beca's unfinished sentence. "Hop in! That backpack needs some attention, stat."

Surprising herself, Beca climbed into the car with the senior, carrying on the conversation, grinning more than she had in the longest time, until they arrived at the Beale household.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: As always thank you to Mary who uses her magical wonderful super special awesome beta powers to make this more coherent. She is awesome!**

"Alrighty, put 'em up here," Chloe patted the coffee table in her living room. Beca obliged and placed her six year old frayed and duct taped bag on the dark wooden surface. Chloe's home was smaller than Beca had expected, cozy and inviting and not at all like the posh mansion she'd expected. She shifted on the comfy suede couch and tried not to notice how close Chloe was sitting to her, their legs nearly touching. Chloe had a thing for ignoring personal space, Beca had discovered quickly in the half hour she had known the redhead. The weird thing was Beca hadn't noticed it straight away, and Beca always had had a thing against other human contact, or maybe she hadn't before she closed everyone off around her.

"Scalpel," Chloe held out her hand in front of Beca.

She blinked. "What?"

"Wow, no medical humor huh?" Chloe grinned. "Gimme the scissors then, buzz kill."

"Sorry Dr. House," Beca rolled her eyes and handed over the vividly pink scissors, Chloe's fingers brushing against her palm as she took them.

"It's too late now, the moment's gone."

"They always say time is fleeting."

"Yeah?" Chloe raises an eyebrow. "Well I'd rather make time my bitch. I know how to drag out a moment if I want to."

It was then that Beca realized that their hands were still touching, and Chloe was staring at her like she was something worth staring at, which she definitely wasn't, and Beca twitched her hand back and hastily turned the motion into a cough.

There was a small smile playing on Chloe's lips as she turned her attention back to Beca's book bag, threading a needle with proficiency. "Oh hey, I forgot to ask if you wanted anything to drink or something."

"Um," Beca pulled herself together from Chloe's soft blue stare. "No I'm uh fine, thanks."

Chloe pulled the needle through the worn fabric, completing the first stitch, "Beca, you're like a little twig. I insist you eat something besides the glucose you photosynthesize during the day."

"I'm not a little twig," Beca said indignantly, "I'm just-"

"Fun size?" Chloe finished with a grin,wiggling her eyebrows.

Beca turned red. "Dude, no!"

Chloe laughed, but to Beca's surprise it was a sweet one, and not the kind that she heard behind her back at school. Chloe placed a hand on her shoulder, "Bec, I'm kidding. But I wasn't about you eating or getting a drink or something."

"Maybe water I guess," Beca replied, face still warm.

"Ok," Chloe smiled, turning back to sew a few more stitches. "Glasses are in the first cupboard on the left, or there's bottles in the fridge."

"Thanks."

Beca made her way into the small, tidy kitchen and paused with her hand on the refrigerator door. There were a few photos of a younger Chloe, probably twelve or thirteen, with her parents. They all had the quality of those photos that come with a frame when you buy them, except they were one hundred percent genuine, not posed in the slightest. Beca couldn't help but smile at one where Chloe was kissing her dad, thinning red hair and a kind smile he'd passed on to his daughter, on the cheek as her mom watched laughing in amusement.

"Didya get lost in the legit Poland spring, Bec?" Chloe called to her, voice bubbly. Beca yanked the door open in surprise, found a water bottle and shut the refrigerator door with a snap. She scurried back into the living room, fiddling with the label on the bottle.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "I was uh…those are nice pictures. Your parents look really nice."

"Yeah," Chloe said, voice surprisingly soft.

"Do they," Beca began, cursing herself for being so lame at small talk. "I mean what do they do?"

"My mom's a veterinarian," Chloe answered, "At that place up on the highway like, twenty minutes from here?"

"You have no pets."

Chloe smiled, "Weird right? Mom says she gets too attached to the ones at work. I had a goldfish once though."

"Named Goldy?" Beca tucked a piece of her hair behind her heavily pierced ear as she sat back down on the couch.

"Yup!"

"I'm a psychic," Beca grinned.

"Or you just know that seven year olds name things pretty predictably."

Beca dropped her jaw in mock offense. "How dare you. Let me dream, would you?"

"Sorry, Raven Baxter."

"What about your dad?" Beca said, gaining some confidence with the conversation. She was amazed at how effortless it was to talk to Chloe, it was always such a chore for her to talk to people in general and yet here she was-

Chloe's face fell immediately at the question. She bit her lip, looking down at Beca's backpack, picking the needle up again in her hands.

"Shit," whispered Beca quietly, all confidence gone now, nervously twisting one of the leather bracelets on her wrists, "Shit, Chloe I'm really sorry you don't have to- it wasn't my place to ask I-"

"He…" Chloe's voice was uncharacteristically quiet, shaking slightly. "He passed away."

There was suddenly a heavy silence in the room, and Beca had twisted her bracelet so hard against her wrist that she was sure she'd rubbed it raw.

"I'm really, really sorry Chloe," Beca said, so sincere she surprised herself.

"When I was fourteen," Chloe said, fingers closing around her necklace. "He had pancreatic cancer and it all happened so fast and I know it was like four years ago but there's still times where I walk downstairs in the morning expecting him to be there making his specialty omelets and..."

Beca's hand seemed to have a mission of its own and she caught it moving towards Chloe's hand but she retracted it with a twitch, changing direction at the last second to grab her water bottle on the table instead.

"It's hard," Beca said quietly. "He's a constant thing in your life and then without warning he's gone."

"Yeah," Chloe agreed, slightly surprised.

"It's just," Beca struggled to find words. "I kinda know how it feels in a way. My dad left when I was around the same age. It sucks."

"Divorce?" Chloe asked sympathetically.

"Yeah. Messy," Beca shrugged.

"Bec, I'm sorry."

"It's...whatever," Beca shifted uncomfortably on the couch. "It's over."

"Sometimes it feels like it isn't."

Beca looked at her and found only sincerity in her expression and suddenly she felt like Chloe wasn't just talking about Beca's situation, but like she was reminding herself too. Like she was inviting Beca to say more, if she wanted. She looked down, not sure how to respond.

"Sorry," Chloe apologized, resuming the stitching of Beca's bag a bit awkwardly, "I didn't mean to get all Dr. Phil on you."

"It's fine," Beca found her voice again. Silence permeated the room again for a few minutes, but it wasn't exactly uncomfortable.

"Ta da!" Chloe knotted off the thread and cut it with a flourish. "Good as new!"

Chloe placed the bag in Beca's hands and patted it affectionately, "A good patient." She winked and gave Beca's shoulder a nudge. "And even better company."

Beca blinked in surprise, she found it was getting to be a common reaction in Chloe's presence, followed by a crooked grin. "Stellar surgeon."

The two talked for a while, about school and the cafeteria's disgraceful hotdogs that had been served that day. The topics were random and yet had a weird fluidity about them, but before long, Beca's mom texted her that dinner would be in fifteen, and she had better get her flannel butt home asap, colon right parenthesis.

"Your mom sounds pretty cool," Chloe said as they climbed back into her car, Chloe had insisted on the ride home.

"Yeah," Beca agreed with a small smile. "Yeah she is."

"This is me," Beca pointed out the window to the right at a small, gray house and Chloe pulled over.

"Okeydokey," Chloe put the car in park and turned to face Beca.

"Hey um," Beca began, taking a breath. "Thanks for everything, the ride and the unplanned SR visit and stuff."

Chloe beamed at her. "Anytime, Bec."

Beca smiled back shyly and got out of the car. "Bye, Chloe."

"Bye, Beca."

Beca shut the door, gave a little wave and turned and walked into her house where she found her mom waiting for her, hands on her hips.

Dark brown hair was falling out of Mrs. Mitchell's bun from a long day at work, her shoulders stooped with exhaustion, but a smilespread across her thin face.

"Who was that?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"A girl," Beca replied noncommittally. "Who gave me a ride home."

"Mhmm," her mom nodded with a knowing smile. "She's pretty."

"Shut up, Mom," Beca said, retreating to her room before her mom could see her face turn pink.

"Very pretty!" Mrs. Mitchell yelled after her daughter's retreating form. Beca slammed her door shut and ran her fingers through her hair, overwhelmed by the entire day, but particularly by the tail end of it.

She ran her fingers over the new stitching of her backpack in thought.

"Dinner, Becs!"

Her mom's voice brought Beca out of her thoughts of rare kind words, sincere blue eyes and wavy red hair. Just as she was about to leave her room, her phone dinged cheerfully from where it sat on the bed. Confused, she picked it up to read the text on the screen from Chloe.

_Hey Beca! Had fun today, we totes need to hang out again soon! :)_

Beca rolled her eyes and dropped her phone onto her bed and was out the door, the smallest of smiles on her face as she went.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Unfortunately I'm going to be starting school soon and updates might get a bit slower than usual as I begin to cry over homework. And as always super special mega thanks to Mary for being the magical beta that she is and beta-ing this when she was crazy busy and everything. She's just aca-awesome.**

"So like, she just came up and invited you to her Barbie mansion? Just to fix your potato sack of a backpack?" Amy said, so surprised she almost knocked their beaker off of the heating plate.

"It wasn't a mansion," replied Beca defensively. "It was like, weirdly nice. The whole thing. She is just genuinely really nice."

"Well paint me red and feed me to the crocs."

"I'd rather not."

"Yeah, blue's more of my color anyways," Amy mused, picking up a small bottle of clear liquid. "Attracts more Tasmanian men that way during mer-dancing."

"Crazy is more of your color. Dude, that's hydrochloric acid!" Beca smacked Amy's hand down before she could add drops to the now bubbling beaker. "We don't even need that for this lab, Christ. Read labels, dude."

Amy shook her hand in mock injury. "I thought you weren't the labels type, Miss Hobbit Lavigne."

"Well in chem lab I am 'cuz I don't feel like dying," Beca said, placing the hydrochloric acid far from Amy's reach. "And fuck you man, I can rock a tie better than her."

"Oi, chill. You've got your boxers in a bunch," Amy then wiggled her eyebrows. "It's 'cuz you haven't seen your ginger mistress- I mean seamstress isn't it?"

"Shut up," Beca snapped, coloring slightly as she looked down and pretended to focus on the lab instructions.

Friday marked four days since her encounter with Chloe Beale, but her mind kept replaying it like a broken record. The whole ordeal was probably so little and so insignificant in Chloe's mind that she was sure Chloe would have forgotten about it completely by the following day. Beca swore people like her all blended together to people like Chloe, like some sort of Popular-O-Vision ingrained in the minds of all of the members of the high school social hierarchy. But to her surprise, she had awoken to a text from Chloe the following morning asking her how Beca the Builder was doing with her mom's car, and if she needed another ride. Stunned, Beca had typed back a quick "I'm ok, but thanks", for she had managed to scrape together enough cash for a new part that she had easily installed late that night.

And, as if Chloe was hellbent on bewildering Beca further, she smiled and waved at her in the hallway that day and continued to do so throughout the week. The day before, she'd even stopped at Beca's locker after school with a warm smile and a slight scent of strawberries that clung to the air around her, further enhancing the redhead's bubbly aura. Beca had simply looked up at her in surprise, forgetting her locker combination twice before she successfully opened it. Just as Chloe had opened her mouth to say something, a blur of curled blonde hair and perfect posture whisked Chloe away, babbling in a tense voice about chorus practice, and Beca was left alone with a "hello" almost escaping her lips. Just as she was trying to figure out why she felt strangely disappointed, Chloe had managed to turn around and give a wave and a smile before she and the blonde blur of Aubrey Posen turned the corner,causing Beca to roll her eyes and hide her smirk with the locker door.

There was a faint rustle next to her that made Beca snap back into a significantly less redheaded reality, and she lurched across the lab table to seize the wrist of the long haired, tight lipped girl working next to Amy.

"Lilly," Beca said, voice like iron. "We both know that chemical is flammable and I sure as fuck know you're not going to use it as academically intended."

The girl blinked, grumbling softly, grip tightening around the small bottle.

"Yeah I don't like this school either, but let's keep it intact today, just for shits and giggles," Beca said, not loosening her hold. Her eyes widened in fake worry, "Oh, think of what Smokey the Bear would think of you! A skilled pyro in the making, the horror!"

Lilly's stare intensified, but she pushed the bottle into Beca's ringed hand.

"Beca Mitchell turning down sending this place down in a ring of fire Johnny Cash style," Amy said, shocked. "Goodness gracious great balls of fire."

She ignored Amy with a roll of her eyes. "Good move, Lil. There's unfortunately only room for one girl on fire, and unless you're considering taking up archery, I think you're beat."

Lilly gave her a final glare and a threatening mumble before returning to the lab.

"I think I've done my community service for the year."

"You'll be winning the School Spirit award next. Just like me when I won Most School Spirited with Teeth back in Tasmania," Amy agreed with an enthusiastic nod. They turned their attention to their experiment, working in a somewhat productive, though mostly sarcastic fashion until the bell rang.

* * *

"Yo gimme a shout later," Amy yelled over the final bell signaling the end of the day. "After you, y'know, do your time in the slammer, yeah? Phillip's buying me two pizzas and a few glowsticks for the rave later."

"Will do," Beca replied, not bothering to ask who in the world was Phillip and why Amy was going to a rave as they both made their way to her locker. "Ugh, the whole thing is so fucking stupid."

"As stupid as letting a dingo loose in the middle of the summer solstice."

"I swear you make these up."

"You give it a go then," Amy gave her arm a shove, nearly sending her careening into a freshman. "Tell me how it flies."

"It's on my bucket list," Beca deadpanned, tucking her hair behind her ears as she examined the messy state of her locker.

There was a buzz of a phone and soon Amy was talking. "No man, I said no peppers and double the mushrooms, not the other way around you wank."

Beca smirked slightly as her friend continued to give Phillip shit, grabbing a few notebooks she needed for the weekend and shovingthem into her bag.

"Yo Bitchell I gotta go," Amy said as she covered her phone a bit. "Before I slap this guy for not knowing proper Italian cuisine. Later, yeah?"

"Later," Beca said, giving Amy a wave and shutting her locker. She shouldered her bag, slung her beat up headphones around her neck, and set off for her hour long punishment, on a Friday of all days.

"Dude," Beca threw a piercing stare at Lilly, who was crouching by an open socket. "Not today."

Lilly paused, considering the warning. Beca was now walking backwards to keep her eye on Lilly and pointing back and forth from her eyes to Lilly's hunched frame. "Watching you, Eternal Flame."

Once she ensured that Lilly was not in fact going to flambé the hallway, she pivoted to collide with a wall of red.

"Beca?"

"Chloe?" Beca said, registering that she had practically run into Chloe's chest and backpedaling in a heartbeat, face red.

"Hey!" Chloe beamed, apparently unfazed by Beca's bumper car imitation. "Where're you headed?"

"Detention," she replied, looking at the ground.

Chloe frowned. "On a TGIF? That's stupid. Who for?"

"Wickey."

"More like-"

"An obvious rhyming alter ego name invented by our inner fifth grader? Yeah," Beca smirked.

"Right," grinned Chloe. Her hair fell in long red waves around her face, making her lively blue eyes stand out even more so than usual, and Beca found it impossible to look away. "Too bad."

Beca shrugged. "I save this block of time every week for the consequences of my rebellious tendencies so it's fine. I call it The Breakfast Club Hour."

Chloe laughed. "You're cute. I meant it's too bad because I was going to ask if you wanted to grab coffee right now."

"Oh," said Beca, heat creeping into her face. "Sorry."

"It's fine!" Chloe said, waving a hand. "Another time."

"Yeah," Beca said, a twinge of disappointment in her voice. "See ya."

She resumed her walk to detention, suddenly cursing its existence more than ever as Chloe watched her go, a small smile starting to spread on the senior's face.

* * *

"So Ear Spike, what are you here for? Deflate a volleyball with that thing?"

Beca crossed her arms and kicked a foot up on the desk, unfazed. "What're you here for, Bumper? Accidentally inhale your tennis racket with that big mouth of yours? Kirby would be proud."

"That's enough!" Coach Wickey barked, eyeing the two from behind his wire framed glasses. The middle-aged man resumed eating his sandwich sloppily, crumbs littering his protruding stomach.

The poster teacher of physical education, Beca thought rolling her eyes to the ceiling and slipping on her battered headphones to drown out the sound of his chewing.

"No music!" Wickey shouted, moustache quivering in anger. She made a show of pulling off her headphones and letting them rest on her neck, holding in a sigh.

"How does that shit even still play?" Bumper asked rudely, pointing to her headphones.

"The same way your mouth keeps moving, Pac Man," Beca shot back, throwing a death glare in his direction.

Coach Wickey looked up again, daring them to continue. He was famous for holding people back later than the scheduled time, sothey both fell silent. Beca tapped out an impatient beat on her ripped jeans, glancing at the clock. With forty six minutes to go and nothing to do, Beca slouched forward, forehead resting on her arms, bored out of her mind. She was just about to pick at a frayed thread on her flannel when the door opened.

"Excuse me, Coach Wickey?"

Beca blinked in disbelief, recognizing the bubbly voice and looking up at the visitor at the door.

"I have a real quick favor to ask, if that's okay," Chloe Beale bounced into the room, brightening the atmosphere with her smile. "The senior student council is doing a school wide survey and I was wondering if I could maybe borrow a student here for it?"

"Kiss ass," Bumper muttered as Chloe and the teacher continued to talk. "She probably sucks a lot of Wickey di-"

"Shut the fuck up," seethed Beca, hands curling into fists. "You don't even know her."

He gave her a once over. "Like you do."

Beca opened her mouth to retort when she heard her name.

"Beca?" Chloe was looking at her with an expectant expression. "Come with?"

"Uh sure," she said, surprised. She smirked at the look of astonishment on Bumper's face and flipped him the bird, gathering her stuff and following out Chloe out the door.

"Uh, is this survey long because-" Beca began, her question withering under Chloe's beaming smile.

"Yup," Chloe grinned. "It's gonna take the rest of detention. And we can only complete this survey at the nearest Starbucks."

Beca's eyes widened in realization."You-"

"It's my rebellious Breakfast Club Hour now," Chloe winked and grabbed Beca by the arm. "C'mon, Bender, let's go."

Chloe pulled her along as they rushed towards the exit, Chloe giggling and singing random bars of "Don't You Forget About Me" while Beca laughed along with her, already under the spell of Chloe's warm infectious energy.


End file.
